Lockheed Martin is awarded a contract modification worth approximately $1.4B by the Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate for the fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite.[U.S. Air Force web site – 12/17/2010]

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Arianespace sign launch Service & Solutions contract for the Sentinel-1A satellite as part of the European program GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security). [SatNews – 12/17/2010]

GVF (Global VSAT Forum) unveils a global initiative to facilitate delivery of state-of-the-art connectivity solutions in support of corporate-social-responsibility projects supported by the oil, gas, mining, banking, and other enterprise sectors.[SatNews – 12/17/2010]

Harris is awarded 30-month $42M contract by Sierra Nevada Corporation to supply antenna and radar electronics for satellite to provide military commanders in the field timely, high-resolution images of Earth’s surface.[SatNews – 12/17/2010]

DISH Network delivers variety of 3D movies including "Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore," "The Last Airbender," "A Christmas Carol" and "Step Up 3D."[SatNews – 12/17/2010]

Russia’s Mission Control Center loses contact with the International Space Station for about three hours on Thursday before resolving a fiber-optic network problem.[SatNews – 12/17/2010]

Globalstar successfully tests new second generation satellite with its first commercial telephone call.[SatNews – 12/16/2010]

Italian COSMO-SkyMed constellation fully operational and complete with arrival of system’s fourth satellite in its final orbit position.[SatNews – 12/16/2010]

NASA’s Mars Odyssey, which launched in 2001, will break the record Wednesday for longest-serving spacecraft at the Red Planet. [SatNews – 12/16/2010]

Chambers Communications pulls its Oregon ABC affiliates from Dish Network’s system when the two are unable to reach agreement on rates, which Dish says Chambers wants to increase by 500%.[hd-report – 12/17/2010]

According to NSR’s Government and Military Satellite Communications report just released, the industry will continue revenue gains until 2019 despite the imminent troop drawdown and complete withdrawal of allied troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.[SatNews – 12/16/2010]

Finding Earth-size planets is a difficult task because the transit-signals, the dimming of the star’s light caused be a planet moving in front of the star, are so shallow. For a Jupiter-size planet, the transit depth is ~1% of the star’s brightness. For an Earth-size planet transiting a Sun-like star the decrease in brightness is less than .001%. Ground-based surveys have not reached the sensitivity to detect such planets around stars similar to our Sun, but with NASA’s space-based Kepler mission, launched in March 2009, astronomers are primed to start a new era in the study of exoplanets. Even with the exceptional data from the Kepler telescope, finding these Earth-sized planets will be extremely difficult, but in the age of Kepler, the first rocky planets will likely be detected including the potential to find Earth-like planets residing in the habitable zone, warm enough to harbor liquid water and potentially life on their surfaces.

The Geminid meteor shower will be at its best a few hours before dawn on Dec. 14, according to the editors of StarDate magazine.

The Geminids are one of the most reliable meteor showers. This year, skywatchers can expect to see dozens of meteors per hour, rising to more than 100 meteors per hour at the shower’s predicted peak at 5 a.m. CST.

Skywatchers will also be able to see meteors on the night of Dec. 13, but viewing will improve after midnight when the waxing gibbous Moon sets.

Geminid meteors appear to fall from near the star Castor, one of the “heads” of the constellation Gemini, the twins. The meteors are not related to Castor. They are debris from an asteroid called Phaethon. The shower recurs each year when Earth passes through this debris strung along Phaethon’s orbit around the sun.

The Geminid shower was the first to be linked to an asteroid. Most meteor showers occur when Earth crosses the orbit of a comet. Though the Geminid shower was discovered in the 1860s, it was in 1983 that astronomers identified Phaethon as the shower’s source.

For your best view of the Geminid meteors, get away from city lights. Look for state or city parks or other safe, dark sites. Lie on a blanket or reclining chair to get a full-sky view. If you can see all of the stars in the Little Dipper, you have good dark-adapted vision.

Russian State Commission states that Proton M not at fault in loss of GLONASS satellites, but ILS, Khrunichev, Eutelsat, and Astrium KA-SAT mission team stands down for a week to review report.[SatNews – 12/10/2010]

OmniGlobe Networks EMEA is first company to receive full MENOS certification for Fast News Gathering terminal developed in close cooperation with Newtec and the Arab States Broadcasting Union.[SatNews – 12/09/2010]

Comtech Telecommunications receives second 6-month contract extension to Movement Tracking System program with U.S. Army, to provide satellite airtime and equipment through July 2011.[Globe Newswire – 12/07/2010]

Inmarsat reports that 30% of some 11,000 satcom terminals providing satellite services to government, commercial, and corporate aircraft are in business aircraft.[Aviation Week – 12/07/2010]

The DEMETER spacecraft’s instruments assisted geophysicists with their analysis of ultra-low frequency electromagnetic waves before and after the Haiti earthquake in January, 2010. DEMETER stands for Detection of Electro-Magnetic Emissions Transmitted from Earthquake Regions.

The anecdotal evidence of electromagnetic effects associated with earthquakes is legion. Various accounts link earthquakes with mysterious light and heating effects. Then there is the widespread evidence that certain animals can sense impending quakea, possibly because of a sensitivity to low frequency electric fields.

But good data is hard to come by. Geoscientists have been measuring the currents that flow through Earth beneath our feet for over 100 years. These so-called telluric currents are thought to be generated by friction and piezoelectric effects within rock. And the flow of electrons they cause has been linked to various atmospheric phenomena such as thunderstorms.

But the role these currents play in earthquake physics is unknown. It makes sense that any currents generated by friction and piezoelectric effects should be dramatically influenced by the relative movement of different parts of the crust.

But these effects occur over vast distances and at frequencies that are hard to measure and difficult to separate from background noise. Which is why DEMETER was launched , (DEMETER stands for Detection of Electro-Magnetic Emissions Transmitted from Earthquake Regions).

Now Michael Athanasiou at the Technical University of Serres in Greece and a few buddies say that DEMETER spotted good of evidence of a change in ultralow frequency radio waves in the ionosphere above Haiti in the run up to the quake. "The results reveal a significant increase of the energy of ULF waves, up to 360%, for a period of one month before the main earthquake compared with the energy of the background," they say. That’s a dramatic increase. These emissions dropped gradually in the month after the quake.

The implications are interesting. Athanasiou and co say: "The results of this paper clearly indicate that ULF electromagnetic waves can be very useful in revealing possible precursor seismic phenomena."

That’s carefully worded and for good reason. Any talk of earthquake prediction needs to be qualified with a good deal of hedging. It may well be that the crust generates more low frequency waves in the build up to an earthquake but there may be other mechanisms that produce a similar signal but are not linked to quakes.

These effects would have to be teased apart before a forecast of any use could be made.

Then there is the problem of the timescale over which these emissions are produced. The increase in pressure that causes earthquakes occurs over geological timescales. It’s not yet clear how this process changes the emission of low frequency em waves.

That means the predictions from this kind of data may be never be any better than the ones geophysicists already make, ie giving the percentage likelihood of a big ‘un in the next 50 years, for example. That helps with things like building standards (in developed countries that can afford to implement them) but it is not much use in preventing the kind of catastrophe that hit Haiti in January.

(a) The average energy of the pre-earthquake signals recorded by the satellite during night-passing, for 100 days before the main earthquake as well as for the aftershock signals for 50 days. (b) The average energy per 25 days of the observed signal during the night, for 100 days before and 50 days after the earthquake.

Watch the launch from KSC pad 40 live on SpaceFlightNow.com. A big deal for private launchers, the demo payload Dragon is test whether it will one day get supplies to the ISS. The low-down, via SpaceX…

This is the first flight under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to develop commercial supply services to the International Space Station and encourage the growth of the commercial space industry.

COTS is also an acronym used by government acquisition officials for ―commercial off-the -shelf,‖ meaning that the government should, when possible, take advantage of commercially available products of equal quality and utility when doing so is the most cost-effective option.

After the Space Shuttle retires, SpaceX will make at least 12 flights to carry cargo to and from the International Space Station as part of a Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract for NASA awarded in 2008. The $1.6 billion contract represents a minimum of 12 flights, with an option to order additional missions for up to $3.1 billion. Only SpaceX has the ability to return cargo from the station.

This has been a strong government-commercial partnership. SpaceX has only come this far by building upon the incredible achievements of NASA, having NASA as an anchor tenant for launch, and receiving expert advice and mentorship throughout the development process.

With the savings NASA will see by using SpaceX for low-Earth transportation, billions of dollars are freed up for other activities such as accelerating exploration efforts that go beyond low-Earth orbit, advanced telescopes and Earth science missions.

The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft were designed to one day carry astronauts; both the COTS and CRS missions will yield valuable flight experience toward this goal.

Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat, Telesat — all big satellite operators who continually try to get their stories out and reported on by the general business media, and, if they’re lucky, some broader medium. Doesn’t happen much, unless there’s a catastrophic failure during launch or in-orbit.

But seriously, I doubt secured debtors such as EchoStar will let this baby go to another location. It’s in a good spot for broadcasting in the S-band. Free Internet? Good luck building modems for the masses. And each modem needs electricity, so get busy with power generation, too.

IP-PRIME was killed by SES two years ago. Was that a smart move or not? Talk to the people out in the field and they think it could have worked. It was a solid technological solution to many video service providers in "the fly-over states." So you think the other remaining big IPTV enablers are making their "bucket lists" these days? Not quite.

Avail-TVN recently announced a deal with Verizon FiOS TV, so their wholesale model has gotten stronger over the last couple of years. As for FiOS TV, they apparently have stopped their fiber build-out altogether, focusing instead on turning up service for their current market of homes-passed. That doesn’t include neighborhood, unfortunately. No problem: I dumped DirecTV for DISH Network and I love the new offering from the 61.5 West orbital location.

So what’s FiOS TV up to? How will they expand? The likely answer is wireless. Not on their current CDMA network, but rather on the new LTE service, being turned up on Sunday. As it won’t be for phone traffic, figure it will eventually carry IPTV. Considering the Seattle market is expected to benefit from a 16 Mbps throughput, that’s just about perfect for HDTV channels (MPEG-4 H.264). Hey, they’re switched at the C.O., so why not? Customers don’t care whether it’s satcom, coax, fiber or wireless — as long as the signal comes through in HD, they’re good to go.